Monday, June 20, 2011

Truro to Lunenberg, then home

On our drive from Truro to Lunenberg we saw a mastodon on the side of the road, so, we of course had to stop. You see, they found a mastodon skeleton near Stewiacke, "Halfway between the North Pole and the Equator", at confluence of the Stewiacke and Shubenacadie River. (One of RJH's favorite pastimes on this trip was "make the Toronto girl attempt to pronounce maritime place names". I fared miserably and was advised not to refer to places by name in front of locals). Actually, what we saw was a very cheesy little tourist trap named Mastodon Ridge (scientific value: extremely dubious). But, it gave RJH an excuse to photograph me with the 'Mastodon'.

Yes, it's the least-welcoming Flintstones playground of all time: "Play at own risk" and "DANGER: Do not climb this house". (Caveat: the Mastodon in question was, apparently, 20 thousand years old, and while the arrival of the earliest peoples in North American remains subject to debate, 20,000 years ago is generally considered much too early... and I'm not even going to comment on the Flintstones nature of the building and ahem, vehicle.)

Then, we continued to Lunenberg, where we were able to have lunch and take some photos.

Here, the lobster don tams, rather than sou'westers. Regional variations in lobster headgear is what it's all about.

Then we drove to Halifax airport, which proved to be very challenging. We were behind the World's Most Cautious truck driver for most of the way on a single lane road. Nonetheless, we made it on time, and got our boarding passes with help from the aggressively friendly ground staff. One security officer addressed me as "m'dear" and the other as "sweetie" which seemed a bit much. Does being in Nova Scotia mean this is standard?